Judge says phrase ‘denied right of Israel to exist’ but woman’s lawyer says ruling is a defeat for free speech

A Berlin court has convicted a pro-Palestinian activist of condoning a crime for leading a chant of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at a rally in the German capital four days after the Hamas attacks on Israel, in what her defence team called a defeat for free speech.

The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered 22-year-old German-Iranian national Ava Moayeri to pay a €600 (£515) fine on Tuesday, rejecting her argument that she meant only to express support for “peace and justice” in the Middle East by calling out the phrase on a busy street.

Balzer said she “could not comprehend” the logic of previous German court rulings that determined the saying was “ambiguous”, saying to her it was clear it “denied the right of the state of Israel to exist”.

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    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      3 months ago

      Do you have any facts to back that claim up? Because I’ve heard a number of people say it without that intention. It absolutely can be ambiguous. You would need evidence of a person’s actions outside the claims to understand whether or not it was intended that way. But that’s not what you’re advocating for.

    • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
      7·
      3 months ago

      It only means genocide to Israelis because they can only fathom Israel as a mono-ethnic state with all others genocided. Anyone supporting a free and united Palestine supports the multicultural community that has been in the area for millennia.

        • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          I know the area has been populated by Jews, Christians, and Muslims for as long as there have been Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Everybody doesn’t always get along but it wasn’t until the late 40s that countries began expelling large amounts of people based on religion or ethnicity.

      • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        Correction: to many Israelis. Definitely not all. Anti-apartheid Israelis exist.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.ccEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      A Bavarian court ruled in June that the phrase expected to be used in an upcoming demonstration in Munich did not constitute a crime and could not be banned outright, finding that the “benefit of the doubt” around the slogan must prevail.

      Yes, both way. People do see it in one way though, and that one way also openly call for genocide. Whoops 🤷